


Something Missing

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Dark Magic, Gen, Mindfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-04
Updated: 2005-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:24:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is there something missing? Is there someone missing me?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Missing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LJ community "darkones."

I know I'm missing something. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's like an itch on the inside of my brain. It's something crawling around in the back of my skull, this nagging feeling I've forgotten something important.

I remember the mediwitches at St. Mungo's unwrapping my hands. That's actually the last thing I remember, or the first thing? The words get mixed up sometimes. I picked up the pieces of the life they handed me, I went to the little cottage they said was mine, but nothing looked familiar. I went through the motions of living, marveling at the scars at the backs of my hands, the scars they couldn't quite erase. I suppose it must've been bad, what I went through, though I don't remember it. The mediwitches called me a poor lamb when they thought I couldn't hear them. They always fell silent when near me.

I go through the motions of living. Isn't it awful?

I can't quite put my finger on it, but I know there's something important I'm missing. I know that there's something I've forgotten that's so very necessary, something integral. I can't recall what it is, but I'm sure I will.

I spend my days amongst the piles of boxes and books. I sometimes stare at my hands, as though the scars were a roadmap to find my way back to myself. I don't know if it's true, but I stare at them anyway. I don't recognize them as my own.

I put the books away, methodical, alphabetical order. My thoughts sift and slide across each other. I don't have a clock, I don't know what time it is. I don't have a calendar, I don't know what day it is. I get regular visits from one Remus Lupin, though I never get a straight answer when I ask what day it is. "It's the day I visit you," he always replies. It's as though I need to be protected from time, as though something might trigger a memory. I think I was content that way at first, but I'm starting to feel it.

There are no mirrors here. I don't know what I look like, just what I feel like. I feel like some strange alien thing, something lost amongst the flesh I'm bound inside. My dreams are shifting shades, they don't tell me what I need to know.

But I remember...

Darkness. And blood, reams of it, streaming out, flowing in a river to puddle at my feet.

I'm sure I'm not supposed to be remembering even that much.

And it grows, like an itch you can't scratch, something beneath a cast you can't reach. And then I stop. _A cast?_

Faint sounds, like voices, drift toward me. It must be a Remus Lupin day. I don't know what day it is other than that, and I'm starting to be bothered by it.

I remember peeling off bandages on my own. I remember screaming.

I stand still, shaking, holding onto a book I can't even read the cover to. I've lost the language, I've lost the script, I can't read it anymore even though I know it used to be mine. Something about this book.... I don't remember picking it up, but I must have, I put all the books away, I must have meant to pick up this one. I must have wanted to read it, I must have wanted to try and see if I could remember language.

I must have, but I don't remember that. I don't remember that at all.

I remember turning my head, book in hand. I had been reading page 367, finger on the spell I had been looking for. I was looking for someone, sitting right next to me, sharp eyes looking for my triumphant expression. I was in the library; I could smell the dust in the air, something only the most ancient tomes can smell like. The pages had crinkled under my fingers, but the preservation spells had held up over the centuries. The pages had not broken, and I remember grinning in triumph as I turned my head. I had found it, our salvation, the final key to...

...to...

"It's brilliant, I didn't realize it would be so simple," he was saying, grinning. He hadn't expected to reach graduation, let alone twenty, and here we were in the London Public Library's hidden Magical Section.

_I didn't realize it would be so simple._

There's something in the back of my head now, a fierceness, almost like pain, almost bad. It feels like a migraine coming on, though I haven't had any since I left St. Mungo's.

"Let me get my wand, and we'll try it," he was saying in my fragmented brain. "The three of us should have no problem casting this, not with you telling us how to do it."

Wand. I had a wand, once, when I remembered what was magic. That's not it, I know that part. I know what that feels like, that's not this pain threatening to come over me. I know they won't allow me my wand until I can recertify.

I stole this book.

It washes over me suddenly, I know this as fact. I stole this book from the London Public Library, I took off the binding spells and hidden it in my cloak. We had left to meet another, we had left...

Voices in the distance, coming closer. Remus Lupin again, though it seems he brought another guest. I can't imagine who it would be, I don't even remember Remus. It hurts him when I say so, though I can't imagine why. Then the other voice fades away, and I realize that he must have been talking with one of the few neighbors I have. I rarely see them, just shifting shadows amongst the windows, going about their daily lives. They must remember their own lives, they must know more than the everpresent now. I ask Remus about myself, but he never answers. He's gotten very good at changing the subject.

Werewolf. I remember that, too. I protected him once, I drew down the moon in a spell and I covered him its darkness so he couldn't see it, bright and full, and I shifted his existence so that he was in a perpetual new moon. We had needed him, and we couldn't lose him to the upcoming full moon. There's no cure for lycanthropy, so it was the best I could do.

If I could remember how to read, I know I'll find that spell on page 367 of this stolen book.

I used to remember such things, simple things. I used to remember magic. I used to weave such spells...

The pain is growing now. I feel it like claws, reaching up over my scalp. It digs into my soft brain, it's going for my eyes next.

My eyes...

Darkness. My dreams were of blood and darkness, I couldn't see what was coming. I was screaming for someone _(Harry, Harry, where did you go? Where are you?!)_ and I couldn't see. I don't remember why.

Remus Lupin at my front door, knocking as always, polite as always.

I want to scratch my eyes out, suddenly. I can't remember, I can't see. _I can't see!_

My hands lift up to my face as Remus opens the door. I can see my scars as I drop the book, as I hear the pages flutter. They're so soft and silvery, thin traces across my skin.

"Remus?" I ask, my voice thin and warbly. "Who's Harry? Why am I like this?"

His face is so sad, and he wraps me gently in his arms. "Hush, Hermione. It's going to be all right." I watch as he takes out his wand and magically repacks every book into the boxes I had just finished putting away. He looks down at the book at my feet. "Is this the one? Is this what brings it back?"

"What?" I ask, confused. "Remus?"

He lets go of me and picks it up. He sighs when he sees it, and asks to borrow it. "I can't read it," I tell him.

He nods at me. "I thought it might be that way." I watch as he shrinks the book and pockets it.

I put my hands to my temples, the pain rising. "It hurts, Remus, I don't understand. I know I used to understand. I know it, but I can't see it, I can't feel it anymore."

Remus sighs and kneels down next to me. "I promised you I would take care of you," he murmurs, drawing me close. "Tell me what you remember."

"The library where I found that book. That spell was for you. And my dreams! Blood, and darkness, just darkness. I don't remember anything else, but I know I'm calling out for Harry. I... Who's Harry? What happened to my eyes that I couldn't see?" I stare at my hands, the silvery scars tracing the backs of them. "I did it," I whisper in awe. "I saw something, I tore my eyes out."

Remus lets out an even heavier sigh. "Come on, Hermione, let's have a cup of tea."

"Will you tell me?" I ask desperately.

"Of course," he says, and his voice is so soft and sad.

He helps me to my feet, and then I notice his wand is still in his hand. "Remus?" I ask, my voice soft and afraid.

"It's going to be all right," he soothes. "I promised you it would be." He smiles at me, and my fear creeps away. "Do you remember what kind of tea I take?"

I smile in return. So silly to be afraid of a wand. "Earl Grey, of course. With one sugar."

I turn slightly, intending to go to the kitchen. "We've done this so many times now," I hear Remus murmur.

"What?"

"I thought we found everything before you moved here," Remus continues, as though I hadn't spoken. "But every time, it's something else we missed, something we didn't realize was tied to then. So many times now..."

"Remus?" I ask. My voice sounds feeble to my own ears, but it draws his attention.

"I'll always take care of you, Hermione. I promised you, and I promised Harry, just before he died to save us all."

The pain worsens, and I put my hands to my head. The pain is digging into my skull, into my eyes, and the memories are flooding back, I remember the smoke and fire, the blood and pain, the clear blue water of the ocean.... I'm screaming, my hands reaching for my eyes before I see what I don't want to see... Ron... Harry...

"Obliviate!"

I look up.

"Oh." Remus is standing there, wand in hand. He must have Apparated in today instead of taking the walk. Sometimes he likes walking in, chatting with the neighbors down the lane. "Hello. I'm sorry, I blanked out for a moment there. I don't know what I was thinking of."

"Quite all right," Remus says amiably. There's a trace of sadness in his voice, but there always is. I've given up asking about it.

"I was getting you tea, wasn't I?"

"Yes, of course you were," Remus says, putting his wand away. "It looks very much like a home now, the kitchens all done. Just the books left to unpack, Hermione."

"Of course," I reply. "Of course." I go into the kitchen and get ready to make tea.

It's a Remus Lupin day, and Remus likes Earl Grey with one sugar.


End file.
